james update

Over the past week, my disabled brother James has developed three bedsores.* He's 25 years old, and up until now, he's only ever had one. We caught that first one early on and prevented it from opening.

At least one of these three sores is open--it's hard to tell, because of where they are. All of them are centered around the hip that broke back in September 2009. The pressure is coming equally from the outside and the inside--his bum doesn't have a lot of fat on it to cushion his skin from his bone, so basically his bone is pressing on his skin against whatever he sits/lays on, and since he can't walk or stand anymore, he sits/lays all the time.

Because of the place where the sores are, they're pretty much impossible to keep clean. Since I've been the James Watcher while everyone else has been working at the new house, I try to keep people on top of changing up his position, but it's hard because I'm usually alone with him, and at nine months pregnant, and also given his contagious disease, I can't really lift him or help him out much myself.

We told his school to move him around more, but I don't know if they actually are. He's in his wheelchair for travel and school between 8 am and around 5-6 pm every day. That's a long time to sit the same way.

This morning, James escaped from his bed. He sleeps in a bunk bed that we put a kind of gate in front of, so it's like this giant crib. This morning, the gate was on the floor and he was kneeling kind of a ways away, toward the corner of his room. For a kid who can't walk, it was pretty impressive. We have no idea how he did it.

He's been having a series of hard days, and understandably so, given the bedsores. People do die of those. He's been breathing funny, also, and he's been extra zombie-ish. It's sad to watch.

The other day, Heather took this very nice picture of James:



I think it's a great picture of him. Probably the best that we have from this stage of his life. My poor buddy.


* DO NOT LOOK AT THE PICTURES AT THIS LINK EXPLAINING BEDSORES. THEY ARE SO GROSS. JAMES'S ARE NOT THAT BAD AT THIS POINT, DON'T WORRY!!!! DON'T LOOK AT THE PICTURES!!!! James's sores are currently at Stage II (but of course Wikipedia picked Stage IV photos to show. Gross).